The Singleton Snippe that was, is not now an existence; and the probabilities are that he never will be again. Nothing is stable in this world but instability; and the livery-stable of to-day is converted into something else on the morrow, never more to be a stable, unstable stable. And so with men as well as with horses—for this perpetual revolution of human affairs goeth not backwards, except when the rope breaks on an inclined plane, making it a down-hill sort of a business. Snippe is on the down-hill—rather. The Singleton Snippe that is, stands picturesquely and pictorially before you—patiently, as it were, and on a monument. And now, was there ever—we ask the question of those who remember Snippe in his primitive and natural state—was there ever a merrier fellow than the said Singleton Snippe, in the original, if we may term it so—before the said Singleton was translated into his present condition, and became tamed down from his erratic, independent eccentricities to the patient tolerance of the band-box and the bundle? Who, thus remembering and thus contrasting Singleton Snippe as he was, with the Singleton Snippe as he is now portrayed, could possibly believe that there are processes in life—chemistries and alchemies—which could bring the man of to-day so diametrically opposite to the same man of yesterday; and cause the Singleton Snippe of the past to differ with such strangeness from the Singleton Snippe of the current era? Two Snippes, as plain as may be; but legally and responsibly the same Snippe. There was Snippe the bold—Snippe the reckless—Snippe the gay and hilarious—scoffing, joking, jeering Snippe—Snippe that was always on hand for mischief or for fun—Snippe, with the cigar in his mouth, or the champagne glass in his grasp—yes, that very Snippe whom you have so often heard in the street, disturbing slumber by the loud and musical avowal of his deliberate determination not to “go home till morning,” as if it would, barring the advantage of the daylight, be any easier to him then, and whose existence was ever a scene of uproar and jollity, except in the repentant intervals of headache and exhaustion. And then, besides his ornamental purposes, he was such a useful member of society, this Singleton Snippe, in the consumption of the good things of this life at the restaurants and in the oyster saloons. Was not that a Snippe—something like a Snippe?